Between 1920 and 1942, J.R.R. Tolkien, best known for his epic fantasy, created these fantasies-in-miniature: yearly letters sent direct from Father Christmas, by Elf Messenger, to Tolkien’s four young children. (He started when his oldest son was three.) Each envelope brought the latest news from the North Pole, hand-lettered in spidery script and colorfully illustrated, describing the preparations for Britain’s gift-distribution and the latest antics of the North Polar Bear and his two cubs, Paksu and Valkotukka.
Tolkien was not bad with watercolors; I’ve always liked his stylized landscapes and the illustrations he created for the Hobbit. These letters, which grew longer and more detailed as the children grew older, are charming and quirky and clearly a labor of love, down to the hand-drawn stamps and North Pole postmarks.
Being Professor Tolkien, he also created alphabets for both the Elf Secretary (Ilbereth… hmm, that name sounds almost familiar) and the North Pole goblins. The North Pole is not without conflict, an ongoing struggle between elves and goblins that gets worse each year as, in real life, England was heading towards World War II.
The library owns an out-of-print edition, the one I remember from my childhood, but if you’re looking for a gift for a Tolkien-o-phile (hint, hint), there is a revised edition that includes a few more letters than this one.
Check the WRL catalog for The Father Christmas Letters.
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